Summer Gone Cold
by Naruisawesome
Summary: SPR has taken a case at the beach. And Naru is not happy in the slightest for various reasons. However, one reason is very particular. Written by Naruisawesome and borntoflyhigh!


**Disclaimer: We don't own Ghost Hunt.**

* * *

He had always thought of himself as a patient person—with considerable indifference to things such as the weather—but as the sun glared at him, out of pure malice, he realized that his patience was waning...rapidly.

He hated the summers. Absolutely despised them.

And to top it all off, some force of nature thought it funny to have him solving a case in an area where the heat seemed to increase with each passing hour. The air conditioner in the building had even unexpectedly went out a few hours before the team arrived at the site, so the client had said. Their client had immediately called for someone to come and repair it, and at this very moment, the workers were trying to do so.

"Ugh, it's so hot!" Ayako groaned miserably, fanning herself with a magazine. Even Monk, who was considerably less active in the complaining department, was snoring soundly on the couch, a towel on his forehead, before Ayako huffed exasperatedly and hit his shoulder with her purse.

"Wha-what?!" The blonde-haired musician bolted up suddenly and saw a frustrated Ayako growling in anger and almost baring her teeth at him. "What now, you hag?"

 _Whack._

"Why haven't they fixed the system yet?" She questioned the sleepy Monk. "I'm so hot!"

Not more idiots to deal with...

Naru felt the vein in his forehead throb in irritation. Here he was silently lamenting about the weather, and now he had to tolerate the tiffs of two complete idiots.

"Yeah." Takigawa yawned, flexing the muscles in his shoulder. "I know that."

 _Whack._

"I didn't mean it that way, you pervert!" The priestess flushed and hit him again, bruising the same spot as before.

"Stop yelling! My head hurts."

"I'm not yelling—!"

Naru had had enough.

He stood up rather abruptly from his seat and turned to face the Irregulars, eyebrows twitching in extreme annoyance.

"If you want to quarrel in such an inane way," He punctuated the statement with an ominous glare. "Do. It. Outside."

A hushed silence fell over the base as the Irregulars quailed under his foul mood and then hurriedly exited the base, quietly shutting the door behind them so as not to disturb him. Oliver glared hard after their retreating forms and then settled back in his chair, opening the case files as he tried to control his temper.

He felt the words swim emptily in his head and sighed internally, leaning back in the chair. Lin, who had been quite reticent during the time, turned to his ward.

"You're in a vicious mood, Noll."

Naru stabbed his guardian with a deathly stare. Of course he knew he was in a vicious mood; he hated this weather and knew how the least of disturbances distracted his mind from operating rationally—he did not need Lin to rub in the facts.

"This is why I preferred staying in England."

Naru looked up—eyes narrowed.

"But some people thought it advisable to return even when they are perfectly aware of the—"

Oliver had thought that the Irregulars were the only stupid ones in the room. He did not know that his tacit guardian was to be added in the same category.

"Lin." Naru raised an eye-brow. "What's your point?"

His guardian continued typing on the laptop, barely looking up from the computer to acknowledge his charge. Only the sound of his incessant typing echoed in the spacious room.

"Do you know where Mai is?" Lin tactfully veered the topic away from the previous subject. "I haven't seen her since she set up the base."

Before Naru could frown at the fact that Mai was missing from the base, the door opened and Miss Hara stepped inside, a tea-cup in her hand. Without a word or a single glance at the two men, the medium sat herself down on the sofa elegantly and took a sip of her tea. As if the blazing heat, inside and outside, didn't bother her in the slightest.

Barely acknowledging the girl, Naru drummed his fingers on the desk in front him in thought. He now knew where most of his team was, however, the question of where his petite, brunette assistant still remained. Since Miss Hara just arrived, perhaps she would know where Mai was at the moment. He was just about to address her when she raised her head, kimono sleeve over her mouth.

"If you're going to ask about Mai," The elegant medium set down her tea-cup on the table. "she's at the beach."

At the—?

For a moment all sounds ceased; his fingers stilled, Lin's incessant typing stopped and it seemed as if silence was tautening, stretching uncomfortably as it waited for someone to break it.

She—his brunette assistant—was frolicking at a beach while he was suffered to be patient in the face of this heat?

This was unpardonable...

"And Yasuhara," Miss Hara paused for a moment, letting the suspense blend with the moment. "is accompanying her."

The silence in the room suddenly felt too suffocating, so quiet that you could here a pin drop. Miss Hara's words seemed to make a dark, intimidating aura develop around the young man as he narrowed his eyes into slits. Not only was one of his employees slacking off from work to go have fun at the beach, cooling off in the ocean, but _two_ of them were! Well, since the others left also, he couldn't say he'd be surprised if Takigawa, Miss Matsuzaki, and John left to join them as well.

Just his luck.

 _This_ was unacceptable—not that he was missing anything even remotely exciting, but this was absolutely unquestionable...

And of course, against work ethics... Of course.

Naru could feel Lin's eyes on him, anticipating his next move, but he deliberately ignored them. He had to find Mai first—and give her the worst sort of punishment a boss could ever construct.

So he stood up; his mind analysing all the different varieties of punishments.

"I'm going to bring her back—"

" _Them_." Miss Hara corrected. Lin's gaze was unwavering, an eyebrow raised in interest.

"I can give them a call, you don't need to bother yoursel-" He began, but Naru was quick to interrupt.

"No, I'll go." He said, already heading towards the base door. "It will be much better to catch them in the act than calling them on the phone." Then a small smirk made its way on to his handsome face as he thought of even more punishments for Mai and the others.

The drive to the beach would take him fifteen minutes—as soon as he got into the car, he switched on the air-conditioning to maximum. He needed the waves of cold right now.

Right now when his rational train of thought had crashed, now when his mental capabilities seemed to have evaporated along with the coolness by this summer heat.

But before this, his awry assistant needed a punishment. Probably more than one. He would have fun seeing her struggle with her emotions as he listed them. He could already see her fuming in the kitchen or ranting off to herself on particularly trying days that would be coming ahead...

At least, the heat bought some amusements along with it.

Though how was he to know that all his rational thought and amusements would be wiped out during the next fifteen minutes...

* * *

Arriving at the beach, Naru realized that rushing there in such a hurry may have been a little foolish. The main reason because he absolutely no idea where Mai and Yasuhara were even at on the sandy beach among all of the people there. Dressed in all black, he tried his best to ignore the judging looks from all of the half-naked people surrounding him and tried to continue to find his assistant.

He had never understood what was the novelty of standing half-naked at the beach, really, this should have been a place to cool down, not to attract members of the opposite sex—but clearly people had other intentions.

He would never come to know why people were so intent on flaunting their imperfections—really...

He should have bought Lin. His guardian would have observed all the judging glances in himself—being even more intimidating than him.

Naru heard a loud laugh, accompanied by a decidedly feminine shriek that he somehow knew belonged to Mai. He headed in that direction, his expression grim as he plotted various ways to punish Mai and her awry ways.

So when he saw his assistant, playing beach ball with Yasuhara, her lips crooked with a smile that was endearingly her own, he felt his throat dry up and close. Somewhat like his rational mind which chose _this_ opportunity to retire into some obscenely irrational place.

Some obscenely, irrational corner specially reserved for Mai.

His blood boiled under his sweat lined skin and he was vaguely aware of the glares he was sending at all the men who were looking lewdly at her, when he himself was no better.

Naru decided that he had handled enough for today, so he strode towards them, taming the growl that rose up in his throat into his usually emotionless tone. He may have been an emotionless sack all those years, but he was certainly no spineless man, especially when people were trespassing into _his_ territory.

What, in the name of _hell_ , was she wearing—?

Not only was it showing too much skin for other men to gawk at, but why did it have to look as though the _two-piece_ —his mind refused to travel to the alternative word for it—was too small? Once again he suppressed a growl from erupting from within his throat. He suddenly wished he had a long, _large_ coat to throw over her, and away from prying eyes.

"Mai!" Her name fell from his lips before he was even aware of it, calling to do get her attention. Her head whirled around to look at him and he saw that many of the men, who had been ogling at her previously, now snapped to attention at his entry. _Good._ He thought savagely. _Serves them right._

Mai was obviously oblivious to their lecherous stares as she raced over to him, leaving Yasu behind in her wake who positively blanched at seeing him. So _Yasu_ was the devil in disguise, luring out someone as innocent as Mai into this... this... den of iniquity.

Naru glared at the collegiate as he threw his black coat at a bewildered Mai who stared at the garment in mild surprise. Now that he knew who was behind this mad scheme... there was hell to pay...

"Naru!" The brunette cried out as she tried to move away from the treacherous coat. But her boss was having none of that and only buttoned the first few buttons on it to prevent her from taking it off. "What are you _doing_?! It's hot out here, get it off of me!"

"I'll get it off you when you get in the car." He glared at her and then turned in Yasu's direction. " _You_." The bespectacled boy snapped to attention. "Get. Her. In. The. Car."

Like a trained chauffeur Yasu sprinted towards them and escorted Mai to the car while Naru threw a hell freezing glare at the men that were gaping at the scene. Once the men finally looked away in fear and began to busy themselves as if nothing happened, Naru walked irritably toward the sounds of protests coming from his assistant.

"Naru!" She was yelping, her hands fumbling with the buttons of his black coat. "Are you insane?! I'm dying in this stuffy coat!"

He saw the indignation in her stance, the way a flush crept up to her cheeks as if _she_ was angry. Ha. Maybe she did not understand the extent of his fury. He grabbed her elbow.

"You will sit in the car and do as I say."

She scowled openly at him. He returned the favour until she backed down.

"Just be thankful I'm not docking your pay."

Naru just had to glance over his shoulder as he walked to the car to see Mai's shoulder slump in defeat. He frowned and instantly the dozen lusty images he'd been harboring in his mind were driven out. He hated defeating her...

"What is up with him?! I don't even see what I did wrong!" He heard her grumble to herself. Obviously she hadn't meant for him to hear, but he did. The truth was that he didn't even understand his own reaction to the situation. He just did what first came into his mind.

 _Impulse..._

And for the first time in many, many years did the narcissist in the black suit truly feel that things were going rapidly downhill for his otherwise perfectly rational mind.

* * *

 _Two days later_

The moment he entered his office, Naru knew something was... odd.

The curtains were open, his files looked a bit too neat for him to have arranged them in that way and there were—he leaned down, examining the carpet—mud stains that blemished his otherwise immaculate rug. He raised an eyebrow... analysing all the probabilities. However when he opened the third drawer in his desk, reaching inside to find a case file that he wanted Mai to cover, his hands found something else.

A photograph...

 _Many_ photographs.

And his mind was wiped clean of all thought.

In every picture was Mai wearing that...that _two-piece_ from a couple of days ago. She was laughing and smiling in just about all of them—from what he could see—but it was obvious she didn't know the photos were being taken.

Naru wouldn't admit it to himself, much less anyone else, but he probably stared at those photographs longer than he should have. And he had yet to even pick one up.

He should have burnt the photographs or disposed of them by any means possible.

He _should_ have done that...

Instead he put them back in the drawer, under all those files that no one ever opened except him. He couldn't let anyone stare at Mai like that... she was too exposed and he couldn't possibly stop the lecherous thoughts that others might have if they _ever_ saw them. No—it was for Mai's good that no one saw them.

He was about to shut the drawer with a savage slam when he saw a white page, stark against the wooden surface. He picked it up.

 _Dear Big Boss,_

 _I took these pictures of our lovely little Mai in thought that you would like them! I knew you would! You've probably been staring at them for hours now, right? Heh. Just so you know, these pictures are copies. So, if you think you can threaten me or 'dispose of me' for doing this, just remember I have the originals and can make more copies, spreading exposed pictures of Mai everywhere for everyone and anyone to look at. Specifically of the male gender._

 _Have a nice day! :D_

 _Yours truly,_

 _Yasuhara_

And from that day forth, nobody could understand why Naru never let Mai anywhere near his desk and took the burden of cleaning upon his shoulders.

Nor could anybody understand why the young paranormal researcher spent extra time in his office, buried in his _files_...

FIN

* * *

 ** **Naruisawesome: Well, this is the one-shot we had decided to write! XD Hope you enjoyed it~! ^_^****

 **borntoflyhigh: This is the product of a conversation NIA-chan and I had after she read one of my crackpot 'fics and we decided that we just couldn't rest in peace if we did not torment Naru.**

 **Naruisawesome: Yup! Who knew that talking about which season Naru would hate the most would create this! Lol.**

 **borntoflyhigh: I think it has something to do with our increasing tendency to put Naru in such *delicate cough* _positions_ XD**

 **Naruisawesome: Probably so...it's just so much fun though!**

 **borntoflyhigh: Yep :D We hope you like it!**

 **Naruisawesome: Please review~! ^.^**


End file.
